My Daughter is Home–personal post

May the Pure Stream of Your Virtues flow within me, in this world and in all the worlds to come.

~

Dear Sisters,

My daughter has been living abroad in different countries for almost nine years, now. Before that, she went to school in Colorado and did a semester abroad in Australia and visited Fiji. She has spent the last three years in Asia, teaching university students in both Thailand and Taiwan. She was in the Peace Core in Kazakhstan, taught in Russia and Poland and has visited Istanbul and most major cities in Europe.

She is a strong and courageous young woman, because her time abroad has often been fraught with extreme difficulties and sometimes, downright danger.

Now, she is finally coming home. We have missed her so much.

This was her fb post:

When I was 18, my Dad took me on my first plane ride across the country to Colorado to check out a potential university. As we flew over each State, I felt my world becoming bigger and bigger, and my home town becoming smaller and smaller. Colorado was stunning, immediately capturing my heart. What seemed so crazy to me at the time was that a State five hours away by plane could feel so foreign from where I grew up.

On our last day as we were checking out of our hotel, I felt anxious. Colorado was so far from my home, from my family and friends; could I really move there to live for the next 4 years? At that moment, I picked up a post card from the check-out desk. Slowly turning it over in my hands, I read the quote, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – St. Augustine. That was it. That was my sign (I still have that postcard).

I left home for Colorado at 19, and have since traveled to many places in the States, have lived and worked in 6 countries and have traveled to many more, and have taken hundreds of flights. Needless to say, I have filled my book with the most enriching chapters. The places I’ve been, people I’ve met, and all my experiences have shaped me into the woman I am today, someone much different from the 18 year old small town girl reading that post card back in Colorado. I feel so very blessed to have had the opportunities I’ve had, and I have nothing but gratitude in my heart.

As I close my chapter in Taiwan, I head back to my hometown, to my roots, to where it all began. I look forward to being welcomed home by family and friends, people who’ve loved me my whole life, and have had to put up with my coming and going all these years.

I’m not quite sure what’s ahead, but that’s always been the most exciting part of the journey. Thank you to everyone I’ve met along the way who have played a character in my book, teaching me the very lessons I’ve needed to get to where I am today.

And now dear friends, it’s time to go home. ❤️ Alexandra Slayton

~~~~

And, I have just found out that she is home. She just landed in San Francisco.